Friday, March 26, 2010

Jimmy Spencer Adds Some Friday TV Spice

Martinsville is a FOX and SPEED weekend. The Camping World Trucks run on SPEED Saturday and the Sprint Cup Series airs live Sunday on FOX. That leaves all day Friday and Saturday morning for SPEED to cover practice and qualifying sessions for both series.

Bridging the gaps in this part of the weekend schedule is a show called NASCAR Live. Originally, it was just host John Roberts sitting alone on the SPEED Stage with two roving reporters combing through the garage for interviews and news. Now, it seems that things have changed.

Once again this weekend, the Friday and Saturday editions of this program will be a little larger. Roberts will be joined on the SPEED Stage by Hermie Sadler and Jimmy Spencer. If you squint your eyes a bit, it kind of looks like the RaceDay line-up.

NASCAR Live will be helped by Bob Dillner and Randy Pemberton reporting from the garage areas. In addition, Steve Byrnes will be sitting-in for Roberts on several of the live programs. Roberts has a little two-hour show called RaceDay to prepare for on Sunday morning.

Over the past several years, Roberts has been clutch in his ability to flex this program with what was actually happening at the track and on TV. He has been sitting in the rain, dealing with TV technical problems and and frying in the summer heat while bridging the gap between live sessions on the track.

SPEED is being very smart in ramping-up these programs and trying to bring a top notch level of coverage across the board. The NASCAR on FOX announce team of Mike Joy, Darrell Waltrip and Larry McReynolds handles all the Sprint Cup Series activity. Meanwhile, SPEED's Camping World Truck Series team of Rick Allen, Michael Waltrip and Phil Parsons covers the truck sessions.

Since Spencer was removed from the RaceDay and Victory Lane programs, he has been pushed into an off-balance thirty minute rant and rave show called What's the Deal?Click here to review the recent TDP column where we asked why Mr. Excitement had been buried after line dancing cowboys and a meatball making chef.

Spencer was also on NASCAR Live last week in Bristol. His appearances made one thing very clear. He still does not get it. TV needs Spencer to address an issue, stick to that issue and then be quiet. Adding Sadler to the panel means that there will also be another viewpoint represented and that is very healthy.

Just when Roberts had gotten used to looking over and seeing Kyle Petty, he now gets to see Spencer once again. Both Roberts and Byrnes get the challenge of seeing just what Spencer can bring to this program which was already going quite well with Sadler flying solo.

So, in between sessions on the track, make sure and keep an eye on the new line-up of NASCAR Live. The complete Friday and Saturday NASCAR TV schedule is on the right side of the TDP homepage.

We will use this post to offer comments on all the Friday TV on SPEED from Martinsville. To add your comment, just click on the comments button below. This is a family-friendly website, so please keep that in mind when posting. Sometimes, comments are moderated before being posted. Thanks for dropping by The Daly Planet.

Last year, I found that I had finally heard more than enough from Jimmy Spencer. Unless it is an old race highlight, whenever I see him on television, I go to another channel or just turn the TV off.

It's really a shame. Just like both of the Waltrip brothers, I used to find Spencer to be fun to watch even if I did not agree with his opinions. Now he has become so bitter, self-righteous, and afflicted with diarrhea of the mouth that I will not put up with him. It really makes me wonder why Speed keeps him on instead of finding another former driver that can voice strong opinions without being a total [insert popular slang term for a male donkey here].

Nope...no Jimmy Spencer or the advertisers that are supporting him being on the air for me. I'll just keep up with today's action online, thank you very much.

I disagree with the gang here. The loss of Jimmy Spencer has taken the air out of Raceday. NASCAR is all about colorful characters, yet one by one they are tossed out by the media. Pretty soon we'll have Jimmy Johnson clones all over the place. If ABC was running IndyCar practice and qualifying at St Pete today, I'd be all over that. Hopefully I can pick up some F1 programming to get me through to the Cup race this weekend.

All of this talk about Spencer is well and good but I still don't understand what happened to him. Was he released from the two shows he used to do or what? If he was released, do we know the exact reason? I don't mean speculation here either. I mean real facts.